I’ve recently been getting into the world of Android Netrunner and specifically the massively successful living card game from Fantasy Flight Games. In the spirit of that I’ve played a bunch of test games and got to know the different factions on offer and now I’ve moved onto crafting a deck of my own. Below I have both my Criminal Deck and my Haas-Bioroid Deck…

Now I’m not going to review the game because I genuinely don’t think I have the know how and talent to do so. The game is brilliantly made and works like a charm but if you’d like to see a review of the game I will point you to a video above you can watch. However what I would like some help with is seeing if you can find any holes in my Netrunner Decks made using this browser app…

The deck has been constructed for use in a small tournament style game we’re going to be playing. Essentially it boils down to playing a number of and and while you’ll be getting your hands on points for winning games you’ll also be rewarded for playing and grabbing Agenda Points from the opponent (as either side).

The thing that drew me to the Criminals was the fact that they have a massive amount of funds. Credits make everything happen in the world of Netrunner from paying for your cards abilities to getting stuff out there on the table in the first place. Gabriel Santiago is also the scourge of the Corporation’s HQ and can get his hands on money for running it. I love having plenty of funds to play with and it means that even when the Corporation puts up a mega-server you can try and pay your way through it.

Away from the money aspect the Criminals also have a few neat ways of twisting things around during play. Sneakdoor Beta is an awesome card that allows you to head for the relatively unguarded Archives and then sneak into their HQ. Great for when they put up a wall in front of the HQ because they have Agendas they can’t get down in their hand.

Special Order is another great card. One of the best things to do is run Forged Activation Order or Infiltration to reveal the Corporations Ice and then when you know what you’re coming up against play Special Order to take the Icebreaker you need from your deck. Works a charm and makes the Corporations job very hard indeed.

Away from the Criminal Deck I have used some of the points allotted to pick up some Shaper cards and a few from the Anarchs one too. The Shapers have the absolutely astounding Gordian Blade which is a massive heavy hitter and Corroder is a brilliant way of burning down the Corporation’s Ice.

Hopefully the deck is nice and well balanced but my main thinking here is to ask you Netrunner fans what I could change in the deck using just the Core Set?

And here is my Corporation Deck. After looking through all of the Corporations on offer the one that struck me the most (although I have changed my mind now in the light of new cards) was Haas-Bioroid. The Corporation is in favour of using machinery and androids to make the lives of you normal citizens better and there can’t be much better than that right? Let’s avoid the shadowy side of things for a moment and concentrate on us being the good guy for once!

The Deck is a strong one made up of some hefty ICE that uses a time clicking mechanic to make the Runner waste their time as they try and tackle it. This does of course mean that most of their subroutines are easily beaten provided you run with enough time in hand so you have to counter that with a few surprises and a build up of walls of ICE. The Runner might have clicked their way through one or two levels of your ICE but they can’t get through it all AND still have time to play more cards or indeed pick up some credits.

Hopefully with that in mind you can create a few mega-servers and then pop your Agendas into them with relative safety. Runners will be trying their best to bypass all that of course but that’s why you have access to the Neutral Deck and the other Corporations for some extra code.

To begin when when building this deck I opted for a pretty much pure Haas-Bioroid deck but I soon realised that I needed to plump it up with a few surprises. The choices I made came from Jinteki (the Corporation I quite favour now). My first pick was to grab Neural Katana cards. These are straight up nasty Sentries that are perfect for sitting in front of your R&D Department since they can be a bit of a surprise when they flip over. Add to that the amazing Snare card as a ‘screw you’ to the Runner and you could end up destroying their cards before they even get to play them.

With this in mind hopefully the Corporation works well with the existing Haas-Bioroid deck I chose. It does focus on, once again, money since that’s what you need to rez your ICE and make sure you can push those Agendas on. With the basic set you have some fairly high cost Agendas so it’s important to have the funds to make them work. With Aggressive Secretary out there as well it can be a nice bluff!

Jacking In

So with that in your mind lend me a hand! I have played between ten and twenty games so far and I think my decks are pretty good with a nice smattering of ICE and ICE Breakers to make them workable. Of course I’m only using the main Core Set and have shunned some of the other Corporations (namely NBN and Weyland) but I think it’s on the right course.

That’s where you come in though folks. If you know Netrunner or are just interested in the game comment below and we’ll have a chat about this fantastic card game.

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8 Comments

I recently started playing this. I am loving it. I have an NBN deck that (obviously) focuses on tags but also uses a bunch of ambush cards from Jinteki and Haas. I call it the Trick or Track deck, corny I know.

It is an awesome game you’re right @voodoocowboy – I can’t count the amount of times I have been tagged and bagged by the NBN deck. I think about four tower blocks have been leveled by their over zealous protection Private Security Forces

Ah Netrunner. Loving this right now. Play Weyland myself but am eyeing a HB deck after getting the first big box expansion, which I can’t recall the name of and is apparently essential for HB and Shaper decks. Some nasty cards in there….

I swear BoW is spying on me at times. This past weekend I was just introduced to this game at my gaming club. Being an ex-MTG player watching the game dredged up my old deck building days. And I really liked the LCG model as I feel the CCG format makes a game inherently broken.

After watching a couple of tutorials on the game I bought the Core set and am currently waiting for it to come in the mail.

It has a very addictive quality to the game that’s hard to ignore! I wasn’t too sold on it at first but once you get the basics down and you’ve played a handful of games you get hooked.

LCG is a very, very good model and has proved very successful with FFG. Warhammer Invasion is another card game well worth diving into if you prefer a bit of Fantasy. The Lord of the Rings one is good too although very different in feel.

The one thing that I’m a little hesitant with in terms of the other LCGs is that they play a little similar to M:TG. While that is not necessarily a bad thing what I liked about Netrunner is that it really has its own feel and manages to be thematic while still being a good game.

Yeah, the theme is what really grabbed me with netrunner. The jargon, the way you play cards and how you interact with each other and the cards really pulls you into the whole hacking thing. Such a good game, so much theme!!!!!